Questions that are keeping me up at night
Should we pay the 700 billion?
In the end, who gets the money?
If we don’t pay, what happens?
If we do pay, what happens?
Is 700 billion enough? Or just the tip of the iceberg?
Thoughts?
Tags: Bush's Fubar Economy
Seriatem
no we shouldn’t pay the 700 billion
in the end the same guys who got us into this will get the money (and I’m willing to bet that tens of thousands of people will still lose their homes)
if we don’t pay, there will a 2-year severe credit crunch/recession and market correction that will straighten itself out but admittedly cause a lot of harm to a lot of people
if we do pay, there will be no money available for either presidential candidate to do much of anything for the next two years, we’ll still have a recession (although perhaps milder), and the tax burden will be enormous
is 700 billion enough? to do what? One estimate I have read (sorry, can’t find the link right now) is that the total bad paper liability in mortgages is somewhere in excess of 3 trillion, while the bad credit card debt, which will also start to become an issue if we do pay, is also in the 2-3 trillion area. so no, it’s not enough. it will never be enough
thoughts? right now (you know I am not currently voting for either McCain or Obama) the candidate who came out and said, “Absolutely not! We may need to do something, but the US Congress will not be railroaded into spending close to a trillion bucks in one week,” would go a long way toward getting my vote (at least on the economic issue).
other thought: when I look at the connections that both McCain and Obama have to this industry I get nearly physically sick (especially when I think about the debt these jerks just dropped on my children in exchange for campaign contributions and “advice”)
Thanks, Steve. I keep hearing different things. It seems the more I learn the more questions I have.
The one thing that stands out… once we write the check, the 700 billion simply disappears off the radar.
We should not pay. It’s a boondoggle of epic proportions, launched just now to influence the elections and take a parting shot at cleaning out the treasury to benefit the friends of the current adminstration.
There is going to be a recession, regardless. There is no need for us to participate (at least in this way).
EK, I’m thinking the same thing. We should not pay… wouldn’t this be the true test of capitalism?
Let the chips fall, period. NO BAILOUT AT ALL.
TRULY free markets are strong markets because they sort out the mal-investment from the good, and the strong remain. Our currency would be sound and people’s assets would not be devalued but would retain their real free market value.
We simply don’t have free market capitalism right now in this country and have not for a long time. We have lurchingly-quasi-regulated, centrally-manipulated (whether on Wall Street or by the FED (as if there is a difference)) financial markets, that are rigged to favor the wealthy and the connected.
We wouldn’t be in this mess if we had no fiat currency and our federal treasury hadn’t been for decades treated like a special interest bonanza. Much less would we be contemplating yet more government interventionism, if not outright corporate socialism as the answer.
In a truly free market, these bad loans would never have happened. Wealthy corporate national socialists on Wall Street and in the WH have created an environment in which risk does not exist so anything goes.
You have a bad mortgage, deal with it…especially if you are living in an expensive house way beyond your means.
You made bad loans and didn’t police your own underwriting, deal with it….you shouldn’t be doing business.
You invested in securitized bad mortgages, deal with it…your lack of due diligence and speculation is not the problem of the American taxpayer.
Some of you have said it here and it is point on which conservatives and many liberals can agree : socializing losses means more unjustifiable private risks will occur, not less.
Further, where does everyone think these trillions will flow, as soon as the bankers and brokers get their hands on them? If you guessed commodities markets you’re likely damn right.
The bottom line result of such a flood of paper money into the system, in the hands of Wall Street pirates, will be yet more unjustifiable speculation with other people’s money and inflation inflation inflation of commodities. The poor and middle class will be pushed further downward, liquidating what little they have left just to survive.
Ron Paul has called it all along. The FED and its cozy cabal (sorry, no better word) of bankers and money changers have formed an unaccountable, unconstitutional arbiter of our currency and our economy. They inflate it then bleed it, inflate and bleed it, on and on.
They truly remind me of how the Weimar Republic set the stage for national socialism/fascism in Germany….an evil totalitarian system gladly funded by the pro-Hitler industrialists and bankers who made out nicely under their Fuhrer, until they were crushed.
I believe it very possible, given that Bernanke and Paulson are working hand in hand with the Bush junta, that this is very much a staged crisis. The wealthy want to be bailed out at the institutional level, so they can turn around and accumulate more hard assets (gold, oil, real property) at as little as pennies on the dollar. Then when the middle and lower income American taxpayer’s and workers finally dig us out, they will be the ones buying back these assets from the rich at, yet again, inflated costs and with more risk to their financial well-being.
America will not go under or “meltdown” if we let the chips fall where they may. The average citizens have always managed to take care of themselves AND each other, for the most part, through times of crisis, real or perceived. We can do it again, and will be stronger for it as a people.
This engineered boom-bust cycle that transfers wealth from the poor and the middle class to the ultra-rich globalist financiers must be ended. But rather than take on the system and bring real change, I believe we will see the two parties cobble together a massive bailout deal that is a Christmas tree for all involved on the inside (DC-Wall Street). I hope this time it is different, but since these are all the same players that have been whores for financial interests over the last several decades, I expect the worst.
This situation has such a huge majority of people ticked off and angry that I have actually heard MSM commentators say : “perhaps it is time for another revolution in this country”. Amen to that.
Thanks, Tyler.
With all these great responses I might get some sleep tonight! My greatest worry in all of this is my childrens’ futures.
Ditto to all comments above–but in my shorter version—“Let the economic cleansing begin!!!” Maybe I’ll make a bumper sticker for the wagon I may soon be pulling…..
And on another note–I passed THREE yard sales in progress on my way to work today….and it’s Wednesday!!! A sign of the times????
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a yard sale held during the week.
I spent yesterday in a class presumably on American Foreign policy explaining the numbers behind the mortgage issue and the bail-out to seven college students. They had no idea how mortgages are generated, how derivatives work (who does, really?), or what a trillion dollar bailout would mean to them.
When they found out, they were pissed.
And their unanimous opinion? No bailout.
Yeah, Tyler. You must be proud to be supporting John “Keating Five” McCain at the top of your repub ticket – just like you helped Bush/Cheney into office in 2000.
And keep on quoting that racist nut job Ron Paul – that says all we need to know about you.
The truth is we wouldn’t be in this problem if it wasn’t for your repub government.
anonone
Hate to say this, but your response to every comment is getting to be as tedious as mike w.’s recourse to guns in every thread
(seriously) do you actually have anything to add to the discussion? it would be refreshing
Steve Newton:
What do I recourse to in every thread?
Look folks I have been asking this question all day of our Senators and Congressman have yet to receive a response. QUESTION What is to prevent bush after the bill has been passed with all the safeguards for us TAX PAYERS to keep him from doing one of his signing statements to let him not enforce the parts he doesn’t like????
“my shorter version—”Let the economic cleansing begin!!!”
Absolutely. I think this is one thing where liberals, republicans, and libertarians are all pretty much in agreement. Everyone is against this bailout. Is there anyone other than politicians/those in power who actually want this bailout?
I must reflect on my thinking for i believe that mike W is right on this one. Oh my God what is happening to me
My question is this:
When ‘we’ get controlling interest in AIG, the planet’s largest insurer, does everyon then get health coverage?
Susan Great IDEA!!!!!!!!
Hi Pandora–Saw another yard sale today. At work, we talk about the U.S. peso…
”Let the economic cleansing begin!!!”
… and as any professional cleaning crew will tell you – start cleaning from the top down.
That’s right–we’re all in this together…but at least I don’t condone throwing good money after bad…and rewarding greedy, bad behavior.